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Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

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Re: Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

#41

Post by clairity »

awwstn wrote: post #36

From Lyft's report: > We surveyed 30,000 passengers and 37,000 drivers in 52 major cities. I suspect they may have done some generous extrapolation here...(e.g. "0.1% of the 30,000 Lyft passengers we surveyed got rid of their cars for ridesharing, so 0.1% of the U.S. population must have ditched cars for ridesharing")

you've thrown suspicion on the study without any reasoning behind it. unless your population size is small, all studies extrapolate results. why do you think it's incorrect?

for example, maybe the 52 cities they surveyed aren't representative of the whole population (this can be true if they chose the 52 largest cities rather than a random sampling of cities).

give your comment some meat to chew on.

Re: Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

#42

Post by mseebach »

brndnmtthws wrote: post #20

Automobile ownership is dumb, but ridesharing isn't the answer either. Cities need to invest in public infrastructure, especially fast efficient public transit. People should also rediscover the joy of human power (walk, bike, run).

I'll take progress that actually, literally happened over armchair declarations of what people should be doing, thanks.

Re: Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

#43

Post by birdman3131 »

I don't get how using lyft/uber as your only form of transportation can be at all cheaper.

Let me run some basic math. Uber wants $11.50 to take me home right now. Lyft wants $13.40

$11.50 * 2 = $23/day

23 * 5 = $115/week

$115 * 52 weeks = $5980/year (I am ignoring vacation weeks for now.)

My yearly cost for car ownership are roughly as follows. (Assuming only work and back.)

Insurance(1): $886/year

Fuel(2): $292.50

Maintenance(3): $1000

Car purchase price(4): $1000

Total yearly cost: $3178

(1) I only run Liablilty + uninsured/underinsured but I run cheap cars

(2) 2340 miles/year (Work is just under 4.5 miles.) Figure 20 mpg (I get better but have not calculated it in a while.) Figuring fuel prices at $2.50 although the last year has been much closer to $2 and less at times

(3) This is way more than I would put into a car yearly if I only drove it to work and back but I do many of my own repairs so I am boosting it a bit for those unwilling to do so. Also including stuff like taxes and tags here

(4)I buy cheap cars off craigslist, run them into the ground and replace them. My normal cost is $500-600 but by the time you add a new set of tires ($250-300 installed) and fix whatever random issues the car came with $1000 is closer to actual purchase price.

Re: Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

#44

Post by kasey_junk »

brndnmtthws wrote: post #20

Automobile ownership is dumb, but ridesharing isn't the answer either. Cities need to invest in public infrastructure, especially fast efficient public transit. People should also rediscover the joy of human power (walk, bike, run).

There are lots of cities where you can choose to live in particular places to minimize car usage. You don't need to redesign whole cities (and thats the ask to add fast efficient public transit) to support that.

You can do localized changes such as tax incentives/penalties, subsidize parking less, zoning law changes that make it easier to mix businesses and residential etc.

That plus smart investment in public transit and a mix of ride sharing are all part of the mix to decrease car usage.

Re: Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

#45

Post by WaxProlix »

y2bd wrote: post #28
brndnmtthws wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move to a different city.

What are some cities with decent enough public transportation and urban planning for pedestrians that also don’t suffer from lack of housing/exhorbitant housing prices? The top cities I can think of that satisfy the former unfortunately also have the latter.

Some of us have both! It'd be nice if it were as simple a tradeoff as that.

Re: Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

#46

Post by tgarv »

birdman3131 wrote: post #43

I don't get how using lyft/uber as your only form of transportation can be at all cheaper. Let me run some basic math. Uber wants $11.50 to take me home right now. Lyft wants $13.40 $11.50 * 2 = $23/day 23 * 5 = $115/week $115 * 52 weeks = $5980/year (I am ignoring vacation weeks for now.) My yearly cost for car ownership are roughly as follows. (Assuming only work and back.) Insurance(1): $886/year Fuel(2): $292.50…

So you're using your own time to repair these cars to keep the cost down, which is totally fine, but I think it's unfair to not count some of that time as a "cost" of owning the car in your model. Also, do you not have to pay for parking anywhere? What about time spent finding parking (again, may not be an issue, but it certainly would be time-consuming and expensive where I live and work).

Re: Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

#47

Post by jdonaldson »

birdman3131 wrote: post #43

I don't get how using lyft/uber as your only form of transportation can be at all cheaper. Let me run some basic math. Uber wants $11.50 to take me home right now. Lyft wants $13.40 $11.50 * 2 = $23/day 23 * 5 = $115/week $115 * 52 weeks = $5980/year (I am ignoring vacation weeks for now.) My yearly cost for car ownership are roughly as follows. (Assuming only work and back.) Insurance(1): $886/year Fuel(2): $292.50…

What city do you live in? Do you pay for parking?

Re: Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

#48

Post by kasey_junk »

vlozko wrote: post #39
brndnmtthws wrote: post #20

Automobile ownership is dumb, but ridesharing isn't the answer either. Cities need to invest in public infrastructure, especially fast efficient public transit. People should also rediscover the joy of human power (walk, bike, run).

That's the bubble mentality of someone who lives in the city and/or doesn't have a family. How about you try hauling a baby in a stroller, diaper bag, and two other kids to a metro train (if you're so lucky to have one close) and then onto a bus. Ride sharing doesn't solve those problems, either, especially since you'd be in need of carseats. So no, automobile ownership is not dumb. There's plenty of use cases where…

That is a fairly normal and commonly solved problem all over the United States. Lots and lots of people who can't afford to own cars deal with this and worst as a matter of course.

Making life easier for people who choose to not own cars, has positive impact for those who can't own cars (and not to even begin on reducing the negative externalities).

For the record, I own a car but also frequently hauled a baby stroller and a diaper bag to the metro train (though only for one kid). The secret was to have a stroller that was geared for walking not the SUV sized strollers so popular with the SUV set.

Re: Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

#49

Post by debt »

birdman3131 wrote: post #43

I don't get how using lyft/uber as your only form of transportation can be at all cheaper. Let me run some basic math. Uber wants $11.50 to take me home right now. Lyft wants $13.40 $11.50 * 2 = $23/day 23 * 5 = $115/week $115 * 52 weeks = $5980/year (I am ignoring vacation weeks for now.) My yearly cost for car ownership are roughly as follows. (Assuming only work and back.) Insurance(1): $886/year Fuel(2): $292.50…

Maintenance is time too. So pulling over and getting gas, bringing a car in for an oil change/replacing air filter/shocks/tire realignment etc.

You have to get smog checks regularly. Parking tickets, speeding tickets, street cleaning. Maybe even a parking sticker.

Also, don't ever get into an accident. I think a range depending on your risk profile makes more sense. Low end would be $3178 high end might be double that.

Do you drink/smoke weed/sleepy as hell and drive ever? Owning a car puts you at a higher risk for paying much more for making poor driving mistakes whereas a comparable situation wouldn't hold you personally liable for the same mistakes if it happen in a ride-sharing car.

On top of all this, you run your car into the ground and regularly buy a new one?

You've grossly underestimated the cost of owning a car to a frustrating degree. Owning a car blows if you live in a city.

Re: Lyft says nearly 250K of its passengers ditched a personal car in 2017

#50

Post by gorpomon »

coldcode wrote: post #4

In SF I can believe it. In a large area like DFW the wait times for a ride are too long to be practical. Also the question of cost is relevant, I drive a car I have paid for in a city with reasonable insurance rates and no issues with parking. Lyft or Uber would be impracticable here.

I have a family member in DFW who has really embraced Uber, and wait times for the area are minimal, and they are around 20 miles from the Downtown area of Dallas (very mid-cities). I never thought that Uber would catch in DFW, and I'm really surprised to see how it's changed life for a few people I know there.

Maybe it's been some time since you've tried Uber there, but I'd recommend trying it again. Also my family members there now swear by it for trips to either the DFW or Love Field airport.

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